4. Our Intelligence Knows What’s Really Bothering Us: Example

Each of us has a subconscious “intelligence” that keeps a log of our life. From the moment of conception, the intelligence records information acquired from the thoughts and feelings of our parents. All subsequent experiences, positive and negative, are permanently stored by the intelligence.

Graf Stress Management uses the intelligence as a source of valuable information to identify the stresses causing problems for us, and to clarify what we need to do to resolve them. The Stress Evaluation gains access to the intelligence through muscle response testing (applied kinesiology) used in conjunction with questions designed to uncover our stresses. The stresses revealed through this technique are often surprising, such as those which occurred decades ago; we may not have given them a thought in years, yet their effects can linger today as debilitating negative energy.

In addition to pinpointing hidden stresses, the intelligence can clarify how we really feel about things. What we think about something with our logic-driven minds is often very different from what we feel about it in our hearts. We have found through the Graf technique that what we feel is often more important to our health and well-being than what we think; it is vital to distinguish between the two.

I once did a Stress Evaluation for a very overweight man whose intelligence indicated that he was using fat as a defense against receiving affection (i.e., making himself unattractive to avoid it). According to his intelligence, he subconsciously felt that affection was immoral although logically this didn’t make sense to him. He’d grown up in a loving family where appropriate affection was shown. He had affectionate relationships with his children. He didn’t consciously think affection was immoral, but his intelligence indicated that he felt it was.

As we continued working, the reason emerged: he was carrying guilt feelings from an episode several years earlier in which he, a married man, had acted beneath his own standards with a woman who not his wife. Because the transgression involved physical affection and because it resulted in feelings of guilt, he had developed negative feelings about affection. He knew that the woman had pursued him because she found him physically attractive, and since he had chosen the wrong course in the face of temptation, he no longer trusted himself to behave properly. Instead, he subconsciously tried to prevent himself from acting unfaithfully by making himself less attractive through excess weight.

After taking care of these stresses, he no longer felt affection was immoral nor did he mistrusted himself to live up to his standards. With no further subconscious need to control himself via excess weight, the man’s intelligence directed his metabolism to get rid of it. I’m not suggesting that all people become overweight for these reasons, but this man had. Acquiring this information from his intelligence was necessary to help him.

Questioning the intelligence is invaluable in discovering what’s troubling us. It provides information we can’t get anywhere else which enables us to unload yesterday’s baggage and prevent today’s stress from diminishing our peace, health, and productivity.

About Elizabeth

Elizabeth Richardson, in Rockville, Maryland, has been certified to practice Graf Stress Management since 1991. In addition, she holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.S. in Operations Research and formerly worked for the Congressional Budget Office doing econometric modeling.